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AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



LITERARY SOCIETIES 



ROCHESTER UNIVERSITY, 



ROCHESTER, N. Y., JULY 11, 1854 



' 



V 



5 = / 

BY HENRY J. RAYMOND. 




NEW YORK: 

BAKER, GODWIN & CO., BOOK AND JOB BRINTERS, 

CORNER NASSAU AND SPRUCE STREETS, 

^ 1854. 



ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen of the Literary Societies : 

I am aware that approved custom and the strict 
proprieties of this occasion, require a discourse in har- 
mony with the scholastic exercises of the day and the 
purely intellectual tone of college halls. While I am 
profoundly sensitive to the attractions of such high 
themes, — while it would delight me beyond measure to 
select from among your studies, — from classic pages, from 
the revealings of science, or the deeper mysteries of phil- 
osophic speculation, — the topic for the meditations of 
the hour, I feel that the studies and the labors of my life 
have not fitted me for the task. If, therefore, I believed 
that you expected such a discourse from me, I should 
feel constrained to impeach the judgment which guided 
your choice. I prefer to suppose that in selecting an 
orator from the ranks of those engaged in the struggles 
and the labors of practical life, you designed to indicate 
a wish for some subject connected with those interests 
and partaking of that spirit. And for this belief I find 
confirmation, or at least excuse, in the fact, that your 
associations are in part composed of those who have joined 
those ranks already, and that all their members are in 
training for them ; and that when the duties and en- 



ADDRESS 



joyments of this select and sacred hour shall have ended, 
the services of active life will again claim yonr thoughts 
and }^our exertions. 

You are not only Scholars, you are Citizens also ; — 
citizens mainly of New York, — of a State young, indeed, 
as history computes the age of states, but already even 
beyond the terra antiqua of Vikgil, potens armis atque 
ubere glebce ; of a State rich, populous, and powerful 
beyond the oldest of her sister States ; of a State 
where industry, energy, and manly freedom have already 
set their seal, and marked her as capable of empire, — 
as competent of herself to repeat the best achieve- 
ments of civil or of martial greatness in ancient or in 
modern times. I propose to speak to you of this Oue 
State ; not of its material, but of its moral, inter- 
ests; not of its Lands, but of its Men; not of its 
Canals or its Railroads, but of its Colleges and Schools ; 
not of its means of growing rich, but of its means of 
growing great, of raising up men of lofty spirit and 
heroic stamp, men who shall perfect its institutions, 
enlarge and fortify its freedom, fill its hills and valleys 
with intelligence and virtue, and thus carry its fixed 
and enduring glory down to the remotest generations. 

As citizens, we are justly proud of our great State. 
We are proud of what she has done for herself, and for 
our larger common country; of the valor of her chil- 
dren on the field of war ; of the wisdom and the virtue 
she has sent into our highest councils; of her intelli- 
gent and resolute enterprise in the promotion of com- 
merce, and in the development of her resources, But 



ADDRESS 



as Scholars, we cannot but cherish for her even loftier 
aims and higher hopes than these. For these are, after 
all, but the means and instrumentalities whereby States 
are to attain the true ends of State existence; they 
are but the steps by which they tread their path to the 
lofty heights of great renown. The test and measure 
of a nation's greatness is the character of its People, — 
the developed and perfected Manhood it has produced. 
All its acts and all its laws are to be judged by their 
bearing on this great end. Viewed thus in its widest 
scope, Education is not only one of the leading interests 
of every government, but it is really and truly the only 
ultimate aim of state existence. It is the great inter- 
est to which all others are subordinate, and which alone 
gives them value. What are laws, indeed, but means 
of discipline ? Why do we protect life and property, 
but that both may be used for the advancement and 
elevation of character ? What are the punishments 
inflicted by Society, but means and agencies of im- 
provement, — parts of the great state system of educa- 
tional discipline, whereby the character of its citizens 
is to be perfected ? And what is the ultimate object 
of all our railroads and canals, all our protective 
and auxiliary legislation, our aids to commerce, 
to agriculture and manufactures ; what do they all 
seek, in the idea of them, and as the final, crowning 
consummation of their utility, but the nurture of wise 
and noble Men ? And how do we test the worth of 
institutions, — how do we determine whether the pol- 
icy and historical action of a state is beneficent or not, 
but by finding what kind of men it will produce, what 



ADDRESS. 



spirit it nurtures in them, whether they grow intelli- 
gent, liberal, noble-minded under its influence, or 
whether it belittles their minds, and makes them ignor- 
ant, bigoted, and base ? And in what but this, can you 
find any just ground for national pride? That pride 
which springs from true patriotism — in what should it 
most exult ? What should it most wish to say of its 
state, but that there Man is educated to be great, and 
the mass of its people are raised by the power of its 
policy to the highest level of intelligence and virtue ? 

And when we think of our own State, and seek for 
the grounds of that high ambition which we cherish for 
her, do we not find them in the tendency of her insti- 
tutions and her policy to develop what is true and 
just and noble in the character of her people? Do 
we not, even while we exult in her vast wealth, her 
great enterprise, her grand achievements for com- 
merce, her magnificent provision for developing the 
exhaustless resources of her soil, — do we not look 
through all these, to the effect they will have on 
the spirit and character of the successive genera- 
tions of her sons? Do we not value them most for 
the use that may be made of them, in the attainment 
of the higher and nobler ends of national being ? Do 
we not fasten, with most of exultation and of hope, on 
that State System of Education she has already inau- 
gurated, — on the perfection and complete development 
it will yet attain, and the far richer and grander bless- 
ings it is destined to confer on the millions of her 
people, in the present and the future ? 

The State of New York has at this moment no 



ADDRESS. 



higher interest than Education. That, indeed, is the sum 
and aggregate of all her interests. And you, as among 
the most favored and instructed of her sons, — you 
who are soon to carry the culture and the discipline, 
the large, knowledge and the augmented power which 
your college career ought to confer, into her service, 
and to use them for the advancement of her welfare and 
the promotion of her highest praise, — can find nowhere 
a nobler or a better field for their exercise, than in the 
completion and perfection of that Educational System 
of which the basis is already laid in the organization of 
our Common Schools. In that organization our State 
has recognized, as a legitimate function of government, 
the Education of the People. She has given explicit 
sanction and authority to the principle that Education 
is a State interest, — that it is among the fundamental 
and paramount offices of a State to provide for the in- 
struction of her children, to aid in the development of 
their faculties, to furnish the means and agencies for 
bringing out into full activity, all the energy and intel- 
lect and manly virtue that may dwell in the millions of 
her sons. She has set apart largely of her abundant 
resources for the promotion of this great end. And all 
that now remains is so to enlighten and elevate the 
spirit of her people, so to enlarge their ideas of what 
true Education for a ^reat State is, of the offices it is to 
perform, the scope it should embrace, and the aids and 
appliances which it requires, as to carry forward, to full 
and symmetrical completion, the great design so well 
begun. 



ADDRESS. 



The State has acted wisely in laying the foundation 
of her System of Education in the elementary instruc- 
tion of her children. She has begun at the beginning. 
She has established a school, and provided a teacher 
and a library, in every district and every neighborhood. 
She has thus provided for commencing the education 
of all the children within her limits ; for giving to all 
who are to share the responsibilities and the labors of 
civil life, such instruction as shall fit them for the pri- 
mary functions of citizenship, for those duties which 
must devolve on all alike. She has given them all the 
means of learning to read and to write. She has made 
it possible for them all to acquire those rudiments of 
knowledge needed in the ordinary transactions of 
society, those elementary facts and rules for which 
every day gives use. These are the necessities first felt, 
and felt most widely, in society and the state. Not the 
welfare only, but the very existence of our political so- 
ciety, exacts this provision for universal education. In- 
telligence is an essential part of public virtue ; and all 
experience shows that the best educated communities 
are those best qualified to have control of their own 
affairs. 

Out of this necessity for the common education of 
all, grows the concurrent necessity for schools of a 
higher grade, — for schools where instruction is carried 
beyond the elements of knowledge into its higher de- 
partments. It is obvious at the very outset, that for 
our common schools we must have teachers ; and that 
teachers themselves must first be taught. The first step 



ADDRESS 



in the improvement of our common Schools, must be in 
exacting higher qualities and a larger culture in those 
who teach them. And, from the nature of the case, the 
teacher must hioiv more than he attempts to teach. 
His culture must have carried him farther than he can 
hope to carry his pupils. For education must be more 
than the simple communication of facts and processes 
that have been learned. It must be an influence as 
well as a tuition. It must elevate as well as instruct. 
And this demands the authority and weight of a supe- 
rior culture. The teacher must have dwelt in a higher 
region : he must have passed through a sterner disci- 
pline, and filled his mind with the pervading spirit of 
advanced conquests in knowledge and in thought, be- 
fore he can exert over other minds this up-raising and 
strengthening power. 

I desire, theref o e, Gentlemen, this day to insist that 
it is the duty of our great State, to make just as full 
and complete provision for tlie education of her chil- 
dren in the higher departments of science and of gen- 
eral culture, as she has already made for their instruction 
in the elements of hnoivledge ; and I desire, further- 
more, to impress upon you, who will have passed with 
more or less advantage through the discipline of these 
higher schools, that you can in no way render truer or 
better service to the State, than by raising the spirit of 
her people, which is her true and lawful sovereign, to 
the full conviction and prompt performance of this 
noble task. 

A system of education, like a system of government, 
2 



10 ADDRESS. 

implies congruity and harmony in all its parts. It is not 
complete, and therefore it is not a system at all, unless it 
provides fully for the attainment of the end for which it 
exists, by means adapted and adequate thereto. Now, 
the end and aim of education for any State, is the develop- 
ment of all the intellect and all the virtuous energy of its 
inhabitants. Any thing less than this falls short of what 
it is the interest and duty of the State to accomplish. 
And this great end can only be attained by such a gra- 
dation of instrumentalities, as shall provide for each suc- 
cessive stage in the general process. Elementary schools 
for elementary instruction; academies and seminaries 
for carrying still farther forward those whose faculties 
and tastes enable them thus to advance ; colleges and 
universities for completing and perfecting the work thus 
begun : — these are the several gradations of a true Sys- 
tem of Education, each one just as important as every 
other, and all essential to the general result, as root, 
trunk, and leaves are essential to development and frui- 
tion in vegetable life. And the same principle which 
makes it the duty of the State to take one under its care, 
places them all under its guardianship and commends 
them all to its support. 

I am aware that this equal relationship of the sev- 
eral grades of education to a common system is sometimes 
denied, and that attempts are made to plant hostility 
between them, as if the one could nourish only by the 
detriment of the rest, or as if one had claims on public 
favor which the others could not urge. It is said that our 
lower schools alone, those in which only the rudiments 



ADDRESS. 11 

of knowledge are taught, have claims on the government 
as an interest of the State ; — and this is urged upon the 
two-fold ground, (1) that the rudiments of knowledge 
are all that is needed tomake good citizens, and (2) that 
while all the children of the State must have this 
instruction, the number is limited of those who can 
advance beyond it. 

So far as the first objection is concerned, it belongs 
to a form of government and a state of society different 
from those which obtain here among us. Where citizens 
are merely subjects, where obedience to law decreed 
from a higher sphere is the test of civil virtue, and 
nothing beyond a prompt response to the exactions of 
government is looked for or desired, it may be that 
rudimentary knowledge, and the less of that the better, 
is alone required. But who shall affix limits to the 
qualifications of citizenship in such a State as this ? Who, 
in a society complicated and artificial beyond all prece- 
dent, in these later ages of civility and of learning, in a 
community designed to be the very flower and consum- 
mation of all that have preceded it, and under institu- 
tions which commit to every member of the State a 
distinct sovereignty over its laws, its forms, and its fate, — 
who shall determine what degree of intellectual and of 
moral culture fulfills the high conditions of citizenship in 
such a State and in such an age as this ? Undoubtedly 
a man may be a good citizen, — meaning thereby that he 
is not a bad one, — he may obey the laws, aud v he may 
perform without gross offense his share in making them, 
with but little of the knowledge and the discipline that 
schools confer. But who shall say, — who can for a mo- 



12 ADDEESS. 

ment believe, that he would not have been a better 
citizen — that he would not have brought more of intel- 
ligence and of virtue and of civil prudence to the service 
of the State, if his personal culture had been carried 
farther? And who has a right thus to stop his growth, 
and deny to the State the best possible service which 
the faculties of her sons can give ? The humblest func- 
tions of citizenship in a free republic, involve duties and 
responsibilities which give scope and use for the highest 
culture and the largest knowledge. Every citizen has 
the power to vote, and by that vote to influence in all 
its forms and relations, and through all generations of 
men, the great body of law for a mighty empire. "What 
degree of wisdom, what measure of knowledge, what 
extent of mental and of moral culture, can be too great 
for so high a trust ? Who, as a citizen of such a State, 
is good enough, so long as it is possible to make him 
better ? And in what can the State have a profounder 
or more direct concern, than in perfecting the individu- 
als who make up the aggregate citizenship which thus 
shapes her character and controls her fate ? 

But it is further to be considered, that only a small 
part of the office of citizenship consists in the perform- 
ance of specific acts. In a vigorous, free society, it is 
the general spirit and temper of the people — it is that 
pervading and diffusive influence which the general 
culture of a community never fails to create, that shapes 
its character and guides its growth. An educated com- 
munity sends forth spontaneously an elevating and 
enlightening power which makes itself felt on all its 



ADDRESS. 13 

interests and in all the movements connected with them. 
It not only chooses better men for its agents and repre- 
sentatives, but it guides their action and elevates their 
aims ; it holds them to duty against the temptations of 
selfishness and ambition ; its applause is dearer, its cen- 
sure is dreaded more, its judgment of conduct is sterner 
and more independent, for the culture and wisdom that 
mark its people. In all relations, at all times, for the 
discharge of all duties, the best Matst is the best Citizen. 
The qualities that characterize the one distinguish the 
other. The discipliue that makes the one makes the 
other also ; and so long as it is possible for one to be- 
come a better man, he can also become a better citizen. 
Until some one, therefore, shall fix the bounds at which 
it is desirable that the virtue and intelligence of a free 
State should stop, until it shall be determined just 
where the people of such a State become too wise and 
too virtuous for the task of governing themselves, it will 
not be easy to say at what point the education of her 
children ceases to be her paramount and supreme con- 
cern. The only education at all adequate to the neces- 
sities of such a State and such an age as ours, is the 
highest and best of which its people are capable. So 
long as noble faculties remain undeveloped, so long as 
capacities and energies exist which are useless for lack 
of culture, the State's great work of education is in- 
complete. 

So far, then, as preparation for citizenship is con- 
cerned, the only limit that can be fixed to education 
is the capacity of the citizen to receive and profit by it. 



14 ADDRESS. 

And this view, if correct, disposes of the second objec- 
tion against considering higher schools as belonging to 
a system of State education. Such schools must of 
necessity be limited in their direct agency to the com- 
paratively small number of those qualified to profit by 
them ; but this is a limit imposed by nature, and not by 
law, and the inequality it involves is one which the 
State cannot remove. The State needs and deserves 
the best service of the best faculties of her people. To 
refuse to employ them, and still more to refuse to aid in 
developing them where they do exist, because they 
do not exist in all alike, is as false in theory as it would 
be absurd in practice. The commonwealth does not 
create its citizens, nor is it responsible for inequality 
in their faculties or natural endowments. But it can 
provide that those endowments and faculties, whatever 
they may be in any case, and wherever they may exist, 
shall not be stifled — shall not be cheated of their due 
development, by accidents of circumstance and of posi- 
tion. She can bring the means and the agencies of 
such development within reach of those who cannot 
command them for themselves. And this it is her 
interest and her duty to do. All classes of her people, 
present and future generations, are alike concerned in 
thus augmenting to the utmost the aggregate of wisdom 
and virtue, by which the character and career of their 
common country is to be controlled. 

There is another point in the operation and effect of 
common schools which is wholly overlooked by those 
who regard them as limiting the interest of the State in 



ADDRESS. 15 

a system of education. They are the touch-stones of 
talent, the tests of character and faculty, applied to 
the children of the State. Besides conveying to all 
some degree of knowledge, they detect, by an infallible 
chemistry, the germs of higher growth — faculties which 
require and will reward a nobler culture. They are 
like so many magnets passed, with watchful care, over 
the face of society, kept constantly and steadfastly 
applied to the myriad sands of its ocean shore, and 
drawing up the pure metal, which, wrought into 
proper forms, shall give strength and stability to the 
social fabric. Do men complain of inequality in mental 
endowments, and challenge the right of the State to 
recognize and avail itself of it ? The Common School 
itself is compelled to recognize it. There is not a school 
district in the State where it is not displayed. The 
lowest and most elementary education detects and de- 
velopes it. Go into any one of the twenty thousand of 
our common schools, and out of its twenty or thirty 
pupils you will find two or ten who, in mental faculties, 
in the readiness and eagerness with which they learn, 
surpass the rest. An extended and thorough culture 
will train them into men of thought and men of power. 
Shall it be denied to them, because it will not perform 
the same high office for every one of their companions ? 
Must they be dwarfed and stunted in their growth, 
because all cannot match them in height or in strength 
of limb ? Is it the true end and aim of State existence 
thus to crush all down to a common level, and that 
the level of the lowest? Or is it not rather among 



16 ADDRESS. 

the truest and the noblest functions of government to 
give free scope and all needed aid to whatever of 
energy and of lofty aspiring may have taken root upon 
her soil ? 

Upon the broadest grounds, therefore, of a common 
interest, may the duty of the State to provide for the 
higher departments of education, as well as the lower, 
be enforced. Indeed, it is a mistake to regard educa- 
tion, in its relation to citizenship, as having departments 
and divisions at all. It is simply a, process of growth — 
a development, which may be more or less complete, 
but of which no stage is lower or higher than any 
other. When we come to professional education — to 
the training for service in specific walks of life, such 
distinctions may well enough be made. But the edu- 
cation needed to make, not the lawyer nor the engineer, 
but the citizen and the man, is simply that degree of 
culture of which his faculties are susceptible, and which 
will qualify him for the better discharge of his public 
duties: And to that degree, whatever it may be in 
any case, the State should bring education within the 
reach of all her children. Above all things should she 
take care that its doors are not closed upon any of 
them by poverty, — that none are shut out from its ample 
feast by lack of means to obtain admission; for it is 
only by such provision that she can offset the danger 
ous inequalities of wealth, by availing herself of the 
compensating inequalities of mental endowment, and 
secure for her service gifts and faculties that would 
otherwise be useless, and that might be turned against 
her. 



ADDRESS. 17 

Passing now from this general consideration of its 
utilities, there are special ends to be accomplished by a 
thorough scholastic culture, which assign it a place in 
our State System of Education. 

We need it, in the first place, as a qualification for 
office. We need educated men, in the highest and best 
sense of the term, for our law-makers and our rulers, 
for those who stand in our high places of trust and of 
power, who guide the career and wield the authority 
of this great community. Thus far in our national pro- 
gress, we have done well enough without them ; or at-all 
events, other necessities have been more urgent, and 
other influences have supplied their place. We have 
been felling forests upon the plain and the mountain side, 
and sweeping away denser and darker forests of still 
older growth, forests of prescription and tyranny, of 
falsehood and ignorance, from the face of civil society. 
We have been preparing a place whereon to build up 
the stately and majestic fabric of a great, free nation. 
We have been hewing in the wilderness and on the 
rock; and strength and courage were the qualities we 
have needed most. But we have done this work, and 
have done it well. We are approaching another and a 
higher stage of the great transaction. Except that we 
are not yet quite content with the size of our founda- 
tion, and feel constrained from time to time to pause a 
moment for the sake of enlarging still farther the area 
of our freedom, we are ready to proceed with the nobler 
and more difficult task of erecting thereon the structure 

of civil society, for which, now through two hundred 
3 



18 ADDRESS. 

years, this continent has been preparing. The new 
duties exact new qualifications. The extempore states- 
manship which has served us hitherto, will do no longer. 
The orator of the bar-room, whose brazen voice thun- 
dered defiance to tyrants with prodigious effect, now 
that tyrants have vanished is no longer needed in Con- 
gress or in Council. A conviction seems to be gaining 
slowly in the public mind, that the high and varied 
and delicate duties of diplomacy can not much longer 
be safely entrusted to men guiltless of civil or inter- 
national law, and whose skill in dialectics has been 
wholly acquired in the mere pettifogging of a county 
court. We are drawing near the time when the duties 
of government will task to the utmost the powers of 
the best instructed intellects of the nation ; and it be- 
hooves us to be prepared for the emergency. In the 
early career of new States — of States especially founded, 
as these were, by men of intelligence and of principle — 
patriotism fulfills all the offices of statesmauship, and 
the commonwealth finds a guarantee for its safety in 
the virtue of its people and the necessities of their con- 
dition. So long as a struggle, either against foreign 
aggression or the rugged hostility of nature, is to be 
maintained, and while all the impulses of the national 
spirit are vigorous and fresh, integrity and courage alone 
may well preside over its affairs. But with us this 
stage is already past. We have now a national policy 
to establish, a national character to create. This is 
ever among the highest of human labors, fitted in any 
case to engage the loftiest of human faculties. It com- 



ADDRESS. 19 

prises, indeed, every thing that genius, and culture, and 
civic and social virtue can accomplish, for it embraces, 
as its result, all possible excellence — it is itself the ag- 
gregate of all that is just and good and truly noble in 
character and conduct. With all the aids that exist in 
older nations, where power is expressly confined to the 
wealthy and the intelligent orders of the state, and 
even where a single will imposes obedience to its be- 
hests, it is among the greatest of labors to build up a 
nation in true greatness and to a completed glory. But 
how are all these difficulties increased with us — increased 
even by the very virtues of our people and the felicities 
of our position! Our vast territory embraces all the 
varieties of soil, of surface, and of climate, each variety 
creating new interests, and all to be harmonized and 
developed by that common system which must embrace 
them all. We have a large population, increasing with 
unexampled rapidity — accessions coming to us from all 
quarters of the earth, and bringing with them the most 
widely different habits of conduct and an infinite diver- 
sity of character, all to take part in the guidance of 
public affairs, each one bringing his peculiar habits and 
experiences and sentiments, his prejudices and prepos- 
sessions, his hatreds, his likings, and his ambitions, to 
the common stock of the national spirit. For all these 
we have laws to make. All these we have to mold by 
those laws, by the influence of our public policy, and 
by the multiform agencies of educational discipline, into 
a compact, high-toned, patriotic people. Our domestic 
legislation thus becomes daily, with the increase of our 



20 ADDRESS. 

population and the growth of our power, more and 
more complex ; while every year adds greatly to the 
delicate and difficult questions which grow out of our 
relation to foreign powers. Hitherto we have been able, 
in good degree, to avail ourselves of the comparative 
isolation of our position, and to hold ourselves aloof 
from the interests and conflicts of older nations. But 
this can not always be the case. The rapid increase of 
our power and national importance, gives us a promi- 
nent place among the nations of the earth, and will 
compel us, sooner or later, to throw our weight into the 
decision of every question of international concern. The 
tendency of events is towards what French writers have 
styled the solidarite of the interests and rights of the 
human race. No nation will be able long to regard 
any thing which concerns humanity, as wholly foreign 
to itself or beyond the sphere of its legitimate influence. 
This advance of our country to larger duties and a 
wider sphere of national influence, creates new necessi- 
ties and exacts higher qualities for public action. We 
need, year by year, better men in our public councils, — 
men of larger knowledge, of higher aims, and pro- 
founder views. Mere skill in the management of local 
affairs, knowledge of local sentiment and tact in sat- 
isfying the demands of local interest, will not meet the 
requirements of that broader and higher statesmanship 
which the time exacts. The demagogue of a neigh- 
borhood, cannot longer be the adequate arbiter of the 
nation's policy. That district will suffer loss — in the 
injury inflicted on the common country, as well as in its 



ADDKESS. 21 

own immediate reputation — which does not send to the 
national councils, as its agents, men competent to the 
duties of so high a trust, men instructed in public 
affairs, familiar with the whole field of public law and 
of public policy, and able to grasp the largest ques- 
tions of government with thorough mastery ; — men of 
clear heads and firm hearts, — disciplined and fortified 
for the greatest duties of peace and war, whom no 
crisis can surprise, no difficulty embarrass, and no dan- 
ger daunt. 

Now, such qualifications do not come by nature. 
They are the ripened fruit of culture and of study. 
They demand a special training, and that training must 
be furnished by special schools, — by colleges, by uni- 
versities, supplied with all the aids of mental culture, 
with libraries and apparatus and teachers — the written 
forms and the living guides. It is a pleasant fancy that 
all men are equally qualified for the duties of public 
life, and that republican equality implies the indis- 
criminate admission of all to equal functions. But it is 
one from which the wise man will make haste to eman- 
cipate his mind. We exact an apprenticeship, — years 
of labor, of practice, and of special study, before we 
trust another to make our coats or our shoes ; why 
should we expect an intuitive knowledge of higher 
affairs ? How shall a man understand all the manifold 
duties of statesmanship on easier terms than the simple 
processes of agriculture ? And why should you trust 
one with the management of your state affairs, — with 
deciding the great questions of peace and war, — with 



22 ADDRESS. 

the guardianship of character and honor and public 
faith, — with sovereignty over society and home and 
property and life, without the same special fitness for 
those great duties, which you would deem essential in 
the overseer of your farm or the executor of your es- 
tate ? Public office, beyond all other forms of duty, 
and in this free country far more than in any other, 
demands the highest culture of the best faculties, — the 
most complete and thorough accomplishment in all 
knowledge, and in all mental and moral discipline. 
Government is at once a science and an art, — an art 
founded on science, — implying and requiring mastery of 
principles, thorough knowledge of facts and their an- 
alogies, the clearest sagacity in drawing deductions 
from them, and the nicest skill in applying them to 
public affairs. It is the largest, the most liberal, and 
the most difficult of studies. Whether you consider 
the magnitude of the interests it involves, the wide 
field over which its materials are scattered, the infi- 
nite variety of elements which enter into its method, 
or the high qualities of mind and of character which 
it exacts, — it stands paramount among the liberal arts in 
dignity and responsibility. There is no branch of 
learning that does not become tributary to it, no de- 
partment of literature that does not strengthen or 
decorate its lofty labors. We have had men in our 
public councils in whom its dignity and glory found 
splendid illustration, — men on whose trained and in- 
structed judgment the country reposed a trust, unfal- 
tering and unbetrayed, and whose memory stimulates 



ADDRESS. 23 

just ambition and prompts to emulous effort. Many 
such still linger in our halls of legislation, — though our 
councils even now lack somewhat of elevation, — of that 
large and liberal culture which the emergencies of the 
times require. The public sense, I think, is already 
alive to the fact that the great body of our public men 
are not up to the requirements of their high duties ; 
that we need in Congress, in our diplomacy, in execu- 
tive departments, and in the subordinate but important 
posts of local control, men of greater knowledge, of 
more exact and complete discipline, of loftier views, 
and a more just conception of the dignity and gran- 
deur of the functions devolved upon them ; and this ne- 
cessity is growing greater with every advancing step in 
our national progress. It will make itself felt more 
and more keenly every year ; and it becomes a thought- 
ful and a provident State to be prepared in time to 
meet it. 

Now, where shall this culture be afforded, — where 
and how shall men be thus fitted for the high offices of 
public life in a republican state, but in those schools 
where education is pushed to its widest limits, where 
accumulated and methodized knowledge can be con- 
veyed, and where all the advantages of a regular system- 
atic discipline can be enjoyed? And how can such 
schools and colleges, thus essential to State interests, 
be established and maintained but by State endow- 
ment \ I know how this question is answered by the 
enemies of such endowments. Let those of the tvecdthy, 
they say, who desire such education for their children, 



24 ADDRESS. 

incur the expense of it. To this, so far as it goes, of 
course, there is no objection. But the question is not 
what individuals desire, but what the State needs, in 
the education of its children. It is not a question of 
private gratification nor of private interest, but of the 
public good. What, moreover, is to be done with those 
who desire it, but cannot afford it ? ^Vhat is to be- 
come on such a theory of the gifted children of the 
poor who outnumber ten to one the gifted children 
of the rich, and who are equally capable with them of 
becoming qualified for the highest places and the hard- 
est tasks ? Must the State lose all the advantage of 
their talents, because they cannot command the means 
essential to their proper culture '( Must it dispense 
with their service, — repress their rising ambition, and 
deny to them all scope for development and improve- 
ment ? Must it fill its high places with sons of the rich 
exclusively, put into their hands all the functions of 
government, and remand all but them to the lower 
ranks and inferior duties of life ? What can be more 
hostile to the spirit of a Republican State than this ? 
What can tend more directly and more powerfully to 
add to the intrinsic influence of wealth, that power and 
mastery which intellectual supremacy will always con- 
fer ? And by what possible system of disabilities, by 
what hostile discriminations and exclusions, could a re- 
public fasten a deeper brand and inflict harsher injury 
on its humbler members, than by thus making it im- 
possible for them to qualify themselves for honorable 
and useful service on its behalf? 



ADDRESS. 25 

I am aware also that the utility of such Education 
has been denied ; that the study of the ancient lan- 
guages and literature especially, as a department of it, 
has been disparaged as of no practical service by way 
of preparation for public duty. I feel that in this 
presence, and before the general body of scholars ev- 
erywhere — nay, I believe that with the great mass of 
intelligent and reflecting men in our society, whether 
liberally educated or not — time would be wasted in the 
refutation of this opinion. Of course, for purposes of 
practical service, these studies may be pushed to excess 
or inadequately and injudiciously pursued. They may 
not be duly diversified by studies of a different class ; 
time may be unprofitably spent on their least essen- 
tial features ; and they may be made to minister to an 
empty and foolish ostentation, instead of a firm and sub- 
stantial growth. Nor is it easy to point out the exact 
process by which even the proper pursuit of them min- 
isters to intellectual progress and development, any 
more than it is to demonstrate the precise mode in 
which each species of food builds up and strengthens 
the physical frame. But all this does not, either in fact 
or in the general judgment, in the least invalidate the 
high utility of that regulated study of ancient litera- 
ture, varied by the due intermixture of other studies, 
which the reasoned opinions of the wisest men in all 
ages, confirmed by the experience of a thousand years, 
has prescribed as best adapted to the harmonious and 
complete development of the mental faculties. It 
would be strange, indeed, if the study of the most per- 



26 ADDRESS. 

feet tongues the world has ever seen, the tongues in 
which all forms of written and of spoken thought have 
reached their highest development, the tongues in 
which Poetry, Eloquence, History, and Philosophy have 
attained their most perfect forms and achieved their 
most transcendent triumphs, — it would be strange if 
the time should ever come when the study of the 
structure and the literature of such languages should 
cease to contribute to mental growth, or be superseded 
by any thing less perfect, any thing less firmly estab- 
lished in the general approbation of successive genera- 
tions. And it would be doubly strange if the political 
experiences and achievements of the great nations of 
antiquity, — experiences in which all forms of political 
existence and all theories of political perfection have 
had their completest trial and test, — should cease to 
have interest and profound instruction for men in pub- 
lic life, should cease to arm and embellish the American 
statesman especially for the high duties that devolve 
upon him. 

For it is a great mistake to suppose that the utility 
of classical studies depends upon the knowledge ac- 
quired of the words and structure of the classic tongues, 
or even of the facts and sentiments therein recorded. 
It is from the companionship those studies imply — from 
the glorious company of lofty thoughts, heroic deeds, 
and noble characters which they make familiar to 
us — from the constant society of the gifted and the 
great which they compel us to cultivate, that their 
highest influence on character and conduct is to ema- 



ADDEESS. 27 

nate. How can the ardent and aspiring American 
youth make himself thus for years the close com- 
panion of the heroes and demi-gods who have illus- 
trated the highest forms of humanity — how can he 
have pondered their words and their acts, moved under 
their eye, and breathed their air through the quick and 
susceptible years of his growing life, without having his 
soul lifted up into congenial heights, and his spirit filled 
with the power and the life that so ennobled them? 
For the scenes and acts and emotions of those early ages 
of the world are those which belong to no single age, 
but to the race of man. It is this fact — it is their per- 
fect and complete production of sentiments and passions 
that are universal — that gives immortal youth to the 
great poets, orators, and historians of the ancient world. 
They touch our hearts, they compel our tears, they 
kindle within us all the noble passions of our nature, 
even as they did for those who first hung enraptured on 
their words, or rushed with eager joy to combat and 
the grave under the heroic rage they had enkindled. 
What companionship is fitter for the sons of our repub- 
lic, what better society can they have, during their 
years of preparation for the high service of a free and 
aspiring State, than that of the men who thus raised 
genius and valor and all the forms of human virtue to 
the highest point they have ever reached, and filled the 
world with the splendor of their deeds and the resound- 
ing echo of their fame ? For it is by the influence of 
such close and constant association that character is 
formed. We imitate insensibly what we admire, and 



28 ADDRESS. 

we admire most what long study and close companion- 
ship most commend to our judgment and our affections. 
Whatever, then, may be his future field, in whatever 
department of intellectual labor his after life may be 
spent, the American youth whose early steps have been 
judiciously guided through that land of great examples 
and of lofty lives, will find his spirit elevated and enno- 
bled by its contagious grandeur ; he will find that " its 
very air has enriched through life the blood of his 
thoughts," — that he quits its soil and enters upon the 
nobler field where his labors are to be performed and 
his conquests to be achieved, in the eloquent language 
of a modern scholar, " with a front which the Greek has 
directed towards the stars, and a step which imperial 
Rome has disciplined to the inarch that carried her 
eagles round the world." 

There is no need, gentlemen, to pursue this argu- 
ment. We never need be solicitous lest classical studies, 
and the general discipline of the higher schools, should 
lack championship and vindication. They vindicate 
themselves, always and everywhere. In public council 
and in circles of private influence, in action and jn 
speech, before select audiences and in the great assem- 
blies of the people, the man of oultuee will be the man 

Of POWEE. 

All that I have said of education as essential to 
qualify men for the duties of public office, applies with 
equal force to all men, of all professions, who take any 
part, however humble, in public life ; for whatever in 
life has any bearing upon the higher interests of society, 



ADDKESS. 29 

whatever connects itself in any way with the public 
good, or influences the opinions and conduct of the 
community, partakes of the nature of legislation, is to 
be classed among the moulding instrumentalities of the 
State, and as such deserves its protection and care 
Every noble deed that may be done, every just and 
worthy word that may be spoken, makes its mark on 
the nation's life and contributes to the formation of 
the national spirit. Underlying, therefore, all the pro- 
fessions, giving elevation and dignity to every pursuit 
in any way connected with public affairs, is needed the 
culture and discipline which liberal studies confer. It 
is for the direct and paramount interest of the State, 
that all its professions and public walks should be filled 
by liberal-minded men ; that its lawyers should be some- 
thing more than adroit managers and successful plead- 
ers; that its teachers should be filled with the spirit 
of their high profession; that the conductors of its 
public press should have higher aims and higher 
faculties, than simply to pander to popular passions 
and popular tastes ; that all who minister in any way 
to the formation of public sentiment, should have been 
disciplined to loftier motives and to nobler views than 
belong to the mere routine of their pursuits. It is not 
simply the individual as a lawyer, a physician, a pro- 
fessional man of any sort, that needs this culture : for 
the attainment of his immediate personal ends, he may 
do without it. It is the State, that is to profit by his 
having it. It is the great mass of the community, that 
is made better and richer and stronger by that eleva- 
tion of spirit and character to which he contributes. 



30 ADDRESS. 

Thus far, I have said nothing of the interests of 
learning and science, as having in themselves valid claims 
upon the care and support of the State ; for I have 
sought to confine the argument to the most immediate 
and palpable utilities. But, even upon this ground, we 
cannot ignore those great interests, the springs and 
sources of all utility, always the greatest praise and glory 
of any people. For we cannot forget that whatever of 
greatness and of civility any nation has attained to, 
through successive ages of advancing civilization, has 
been reached by the aid of science, by the power and 
the discipline which sound learning confers. It is among 
the loftiest and the noblest aims, therefore, which any 
nation can propose to itself, to build up these great 
interests to the utmost, to give to them the largest 
scope and development, and to fill its people, of all 
ranks and through all classes, with its aspiring and 
liberal spirit. In this age especially, when Science has 
done so much for civilization, when the mightiest of its 
agencies and powers are those which science has revealed, 
it is of the highest importance that science should be 
cherished as the mighty mother of the modern world. 
We still need larger knowledge and more full possession 
of Nature's secrets. Our dominion over the forces of 
the universe, which have slumbered, in the darkness 
where they do their mighty work, since the fiat of the 
Almighty first gave them birth, is still but half estab- 
lished ; and nothing but science can extend and perfect 
it. When we see, on every side, what scientific research 
has accomplished for society within the last half-cen- 
tury, when we reflect on the extent to which all existing 



ADDRESS. 31 

energy and progress are dependent on it, it seems im- 
possible that we should be in any danger of forgetting 
its claims, or of postponing them to considerations of 
less importance. 

We must not deceive ourselves as to the position of 
our country in regard to this subject. Great and re- 
nowned as have been our achievements in other fields, 
in learning and science we have still our laurels to win. 
In mechanism and the skillful adaptation of means to 
ends, we have already achieved an honorable fame. 
But we have as yet made few discoveries in the realms 
of science : — our most important inventions have grown 
out of principles discovered in foreign lands ; and our 
men of highest culture and of greatest learning have 
drawn from foreign universities their guidance and in- 
struction. This as yet gives no occasion for just re- 
proach ; for hitherto more pressing necessities have pre- 
vented us from turning our thoughts in this direction. 
But the years are rolling on ; our national frame is be- 
coming knit and strong ; our material interests have been 
secured ; and it is time we began to look earnestly and 
carefully after the higher concerns on which our glory 
and renown must at last depend. For there is nothing 
lasting in a nation's greatness but its conquests in the 
realms of intellect, its achievements in the domains of 
science, its contributions to the noble, the lofty, the he- 
roic, and the immortal. "What is it that gathers around 
Athens the homage of all generations, and will make 
that name the synonym of all that is greatest and best 
in national renown, to the latest syllable of recorded 



32 ADDRESS. 

time? Not its wealth, nor its power, nor even the 
valor of its sons on the field of war ; for all of these, 
but their undying fame, has passed away forever. It is 
the genius and lofty culture of her sons. It is the 
splendid productions of letters and of art, the perfect 
models of excellence in character and conduct, the 
bright examples of valor and of virtue, she has be- 
queathed the world. These — these are the priceless 
treasures which make up a nation's glory. These are 
the everlasting possessions which time can not tarnish, 
over which oblivion herself has no power. 

I have thus presented some of the more obvious 
considerations which, in my judgment, impose upon our 
rich and noble State the duty of completing her 
State System of Education, by extending it to the 
higher departments of mental culture, — by adding 
academies, colleges, and universities to her common 
schools, and by offering to every child within her 
limits the full and free advantage of the best disci- 
pline and training which they confer. The limits of 
such an address compel me to pass unnoticed various 
minor objections which might be urged against such 
an extension of the functions of the State, and the 
many difficulties which seem to threaten the practical 
operation of such a system. Nor do I enter into any 
inquiry as to the specific measures by which it should 
be carried out ; for these belong rather to the men in- 
to whose hands the task of State legislation may be 
entrusted, than to such an audience as this occasion 



ADDRESS. 33 

brings together. But I cannot believe that any diffi- 
culties exist which a wise and prudent statesmanship 
cannot remove, nor that the objections to such State 
action, are at all to be compared with the high utili- 
ties which commend it to the general favor of all her 
people. 

Nor can I close without a word of apology for 
having thus forced on your attention, Gentlemen of 
the Literary Societies, arguments and considerations 
which seem more appropriate to legislative halls than 
to this literary and festal commemoration. But in 
our free society, and under our republican forms, 
wherever activity of thought prevails there the pro- 
cess of legislation is going on, there spring up those 
influences which give direction to public sentiment, 
which elevate popular aspirations, and which finally 
condense the general opinion and reason of the com- 
munity into the forms of law. Where, then, more 
properly than here, before Societies whose special ob- 
ject is to adapt to practical service the solid culture 
of college studies, in presence of those upon whom 
■will soon devolve in large degree the labors and 
responsibilities of public life, can the claims of Educa- 
tion be urged ? I cannot help feeling that in coming 
here with such claims, on behalf of the high and tho- 
rough culture which the State requires, we come 
where they will meet the promptest recognition, and 
at the same time enlist the most earnest and effective 
championship. The youth of our State stand nobly dis- 
tinguished for liberality of sentiment, for vigor of intel- 



34 ADDRESS. 

lect, and for energy in action. The raw material for 
great characters and for useful public service, lies 
profusely scattered over its fertile hills and plains. I 
see an eventful and a stirring age dawning on our 
State, and preparing still higher duties and responsi- 
bilities for us and the generations that come after us. 
We have planted on this soil the germs of the noblest 
civilization the world has seen. We have achieved 
the conquest of commerce and the mechanic arts. 
Whatever energy, enterprise, and industry can accom- 
plish, in adding wealth and power and large command 
to a nation's inheritance, we may look upon as already 
ours. But a larger empire invites and awaits us. A 
higher ambition beckons us to new fields, brighter than 
the vision which enticed Columbus to this western world, 
holier than the dreams which stirred Christian Europe 
to the rescue of the tomb where Christ the Redeemer 
of old reposed. Realms of thought solicit our invasion. 
A great and mighty people, rich in spirit, lofty in 
aspiring, which deems nothing that human genius can 
effect beyond its reach, awaits the guidance and coun- 
sel that lead states to the heights of great renown. 
Be it your task, young men, and that of others whom 
kindred societies are training for a kindred sphere, to 
lead the van in this new crusade. More grand is this 
domain, loftier and nobler are victories won in such 
a war, than all that martial ardor has ever laid at 
the conqueror's feet. Wherever, then, your paths in 
life may lead, whether it be yours to make the laws, 
or train the men, or create the public sentiment for 



ADDRESS. 35 

our noble State, cherish for her evermore that high 
ambition which links intellectual culture with civil 
freedom; infuse into her sovereign opinion the love of 
what is excellent and noble, and scorn for all that is 
narrow and ignorant and base ; secure for her that 
sublime alliance between material and intellectual 
power which gives stability to growth and makes pro- 
gress safe ; and fasten her affections and her supreme 
endeavors on those great interests which elevate hu- 
manity and set upon nations, as upon individuals, the 
seal of immortality. 



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